The life of Holocaust survivor Josef Veselsky left an “everlasting mark on the image” of his native Slovakia, the country’s president said.
In comments delivered by the acting Slovak ambassador in Ireland, Viera Motešická, the country’s president Peter Pellegrini said Mr Veselsky had demonstrated through his long life how even the most terrible of circumstances could not disturb “one’s faith in humanity or deprive somebody of the joy, optimism and enthusiasm for life”.
Mr Veselsky was the oldest man in Ireland when he died on Sunday aged 107. His funeral service took place on Wednesday at the Mount Jerome Crematorium in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.
He lost his parents, brother and sister-in-law at Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp. They were among some 263,000 Czechoslovakian Jews murdered by Nazis and collaborators.
Mr Veselsky had shown “exceptional character” in his role as a Slovak resistance fighter during the second World War and fled another oppressive regime in 1948 when he left communist Czechoslovakia in 1948 for a new life in Ireland, Mr Pellegrini recalled.
Mr Veselsky was born Josef Weiss to Jewish parents in the old Austrian-Hungarian empire in October 1918. He was born into an empire that no longer exists and died in a state that did not exist when he was born.
His grandson Nicholas Browne described his grandfather’s life as spanning the “arc of history”. He lived so long that he saw history repeating itself with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, leading to his in-laws fleeing Ukraine through Slovakia and from there to Ireland, Mr Browne added.
Josef Veselsky’s children, Peter and Kate, at the funeral of their father, at Mount Jerome Crematorium, Harold’s Cross, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Mr Veselsky’s other grandson, Stephen Browne, told of how his grandfather was captured in late 1944 by the Germans and faced certain death until he befriended a German prison guard who was actually French and encouraged him to defect to the Allies.
Mr Veselsky was also the first outsider to receive news of the reality of Auschwitz from the first people to escape the concentration camp, two Slovak Jews, Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba, in the spring of 1944. They went to the Vatican to warn the world of the horrors of the mass extermination of European Jews.
Mr Veselsky’s daughter Kate said her father’s message to everybody was to be happy, not sad. She and her brother Peter had been “overwhelmed” by messages from all over the world from people who had known their father.
President Catherine Connolly was represented at his funeral by her aide-de-camp, Col Tom McGrath. Those present included former Republic of Ireland manager Brian Kerr and former League of Ireland manager Liam Buckley, reflecting Mr Veselsky’s status as a former board member at Shamrock Rovers.
Representatives from the world of Irish table tennis were also present. Mr Veselsky revived the sport in Ireland after he came to the country.
Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik, the German ambassador to Ireland David Gill and businessman Harry Crosbie were also present at the funeral.